Expect the Unexpected ( especially when you're not expecting it)

Joyous Sparks
5 days ago
4 min read

Welcome to another week's explorations and unexpected developments in the tiny ascension kitchen.

It's been a slow weekend, because that's what was needed. So, very little in terms of adventures, and more feeling inside as to what I felt to eat.

This is an unsual exploration for me. Usually, the inquiry is: What wants to create?

This time, I listened internally and ask: But what do I actually want to eat?

... and of course then Universe threw a curveball, the whole thing went a liiiittle off the rails, and now I have, once again, more prepared food than I can eat and that my fridge can barely fit, but still, it might enterntain you.

So here's to another Kitchen Adventues with Joy.

Starting this week's exploration on a day I was feeling terrible, headachy, and also somewhat uninspired about what to do with the cucumber in this week's fruit-and-veggie box. November isn't exactly cucumber time, is it? Or salad time. Still, I couldn't think of anything better to do with it ~ except a lentil salad with veggies. So that's what I made:

A bright salad (for grey days)

Combining:

1 small cucumber, diced
1 small carrot, diced
22 green olives, quartered
1 nice big tomato, chopped into small bits
leaves from celery stalks, also chopped into small bits
beluga lentils, cooked
sesame oil + apple vinegar + ginger juice
salt, pepper, salat seasoning (Alles im Grünen, from the brand Sonnentor)
and a splash of the brine the olives were swimming in

Left over night in the fridge, it is a little odd to eat a summery salad when it's freezing outside - literally, there's been frost all day, even with the sun shining - but it's also good.

Especially because it sneaks a lot of fluids past your notice, and I haven't been drinking enough. So that is double good. :-)

Up next my maybe-new-favourite, the oven baked curry. BUT! This time actually according to the recipe. Well, more or less ... as usual ... though this time more (aka I used coconut milk, and OMG the difference is makes ...)

Oven-baked curry with not just pumpkin

Combinging:

1 tiny Hkkaido pumpkin, chopped into small pieces
1/2 of a giant beetroot, chopped into extra small pieces
1 carrot, diced
2 small red potatoes, diced
130g green pea pasta
200ml passata
1 can coconut milk
juice of 1 lemon
salt, pepper
1 teaspoon each of "umami veggie seasoning", paprika, curry

All mixed together, with a drizzle of coco amimos on top, and into the oven. Started at 200°C, upped to 220°C - but my oven is a little weak, so 200°C with a stronger one is sufficient. 20 - 30 minutes, though I left it in for something like 40 minutes, and yes, the bloody beetroot is still not fully done.

But I was, and also the pasta was, so I called it.

And this may be amazingly obvious to everyone, but I've just had a revelation: I've made this dish a number of times before, and this is the first time I've used the coconut milk the recipe demands. And it makes such a difference! Incredible.

Folks! Don't make this without the coconut milk, you'll miss out on the full amazingness otherwise.

I don't want to eat anything else this week

... of course there is more.

Because while contemplating the oven-baked, my eyes fell on the bag with quinoa. And the idea landed of adding quinoa to the bake.

No, I ended up not using the quinoa in the bake, because suddenly I caught myself chopping a carrot and parsnip and cooking mung beans, without really fully understanding why.

But, well.

This is why. The Unexpected. The dish I had not planned to make, that I had not meant to make, that made itself by using me, and I am a little bewildered. How did that happen? O.O

Unexpectedly:

1 carrot, diced
1 small parsnip, diced
1/2 of a big zucchini, diced
75g quino (50g is probaby enough)
the above all cooked together for approx. 15 minutes
approx. 200g cooked mung beans (could be less, I didn't weigh what was left over in the pot)
salt, lots of pepper, 1 teaspoon "umami veggie seasoning"
oh, yes, and a splash of tamari to the beans in their pot and left to marinate a bit, before all combined

Probably needs a bit of a sauce on top, but inspiration buggered off once the above was done, so appearantly that's completed? Or maybe not?

I don't know. Do you? Any inspirations: please let me know!

Because, you see, what I had meant to make is this:

Simple and Sweet (potato)

With chickpeas and spinach, 3 small onions and 1 clove of garlic, some salt, lots and lots of pepper.

And that's it. Yup, nothing else. Just sautéd onion, added garlic, added sweet potato, cooked with a bit of water and the (frozen,thawing) chickpeas, for I don't know how long, until the sweet potatoe was almost done. Then added fresh spinach, letting it wilt.

And done.

No other spices, herbs, seasonings.

I mean, I might add some, at one point. But it actually tastes asbsolutely yummy, just as is. So, maybe, this time ~ keep it simple. And sweet.

and I feel that this is a perfect closing word for this week's write-up. Simple. And sweet.

Much love,

Joy